"The Temp" is in reality a theatrical release, but one can be forgiven
for thinking it was made for TV. After all, this kind of thriller,
although fairly common in theatres in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, is now
mostly relegated to the small screen. It’s down to a formula: Person A
is trying to get his or her life together after making some bad
decisions. Person B shows up and is incredibly helpful. Then Person B
does some things that make Person A vaguely suspicious, with Person B
seeming more and more ominous as the story continues.

Here, Person A is corporate executive Peter Derns (Timothy Hutton),
separated from his wife and child after a bout of bad behavior on his
part. Peter’s company, Mrs. Appleby’s, is in the throes of trying to
launch a new cookie, an enterprise everyone undertakes with the
seriousness of developing missile technology. Peter’s assistant has a
family emergency and Peter must resort to a temp. Enter Kris Bolin
(Lara Flynn Boyle), a super-capable super-secretary who streamlines
Peter’s work life. Peter is grateful – until Kris starts campaigning
for a permanent job. On his first day back, Peter’s regular assistant
suffers a gruesome accident, so Kris is indeed kept on. Then Peter’s
business rivals start suffering strange fatalities …

The above scenario, while hardly unique, is in itself neither a recipe
for success or disaster (just as alien stories can mean anything from
"E.T." to "Plan Nine From Outer Space"). The screenplay by Kevin Falls,
from a story by Falls & Tom Engelman, starts out on an even keel,
with a few intriguing possibilities, and director Tom Holland sets up
the promise of some intriguingly nasty complications with the first big
incident, involving a paper shredder.

Unfortunately, no one involved knows how to raise the stakes properly.
We never get a satisfying explanation of Kris’s background or her
agenda – or why, indeed, anybody would go to all this trouble over a
corporation that seems so anonymous and unglamorous. There’s no doubt a
way to mine this for chilling irony, but "The Temp" is too invested in
tradition to be sly about the status quo. For Peter to maintain his
position as good guy, the movie hews almost to Hays Code conduct – our
hero resists Kris’ seductive charms and the "Mr. Hyde"-like deeds that
drove his wife away turn out to be far less aggressive than early
dialogue suggests. Kris’ wiles are nothing that couldn’t be seen on
television and the violence – the paper shredder aside – is all fairly
mild. If it weren’t for a bit of rough language, the movie might have
skated by with a PG-13, but a rating more kid-friendly than an R is the
kiss of non-credibility for this genre. The ending is such an
anti-climactic wet fizzle that it wouldn’t be surprising to hear there
were last-minute reshoots, substituting the dialogue scene we get for
something more action-oriented that was deemed not to work.

In any event, "The Temp" feels and sounds largely like a TV movie. It
doesn’t entirely look like a TV movie, thanks to Holland’s muscular
tracking shots and production design indicating money was spent, but it
also doesn’t have much visual identity of its own. As for the sound,
although the mix is 5.1 surround, there are almost no directional
effects. We get some minor, unexciting specific crowd sounds at a
basketball game in Chapter 3, a bit of traffic noise in the rears on
Channel 5 and some good rain all around on Chapter 10. Chapter 2 has
some fun with Frederic Talgorn’s score, using cheery romantic comedy
music as Kris zips around the office aiding Peter, and Chapter 8 has a
lightly chilling effect with a vocal loop played back on computer in an
isolated area. However, there’s nothing here to challenge a sound
system or even particularly intrigue the listener.

Hutton, Boyle and their colleagues – who include Steven Weber, Oliver
Platt, Maura Tierney, Dwight Schultz and Faye Dunaway – all give
decent, appropriate performances. They make "The Temp" the kind of
workmanlike filler that one might stick with if it happened to be on TV
in the afternoon. Making the effort to rent or purchase the DVD,
however, should probably be left to those with serious interest in the
complete filmographies of one or more of the actors and/or filmmakers
involved.